UNWON with Keely Covello

The first episode of The Read, the new UNWON segment where I narrate my investigative reporting straight from the page, no cuts. We open with “Pay to Play,” an investigation into REAL AZ Economic Development Group: a Navajo County, Arizona nonprofit run by sitting county officials, out of county offices, that took in more than a million dollars from the same wind and solar developers those officia...

The flesh-eating parasite the U.S. wiped out 60 years ago is back across the border, and suddenly everyone has a PhD in parasitology. This episode of Ranch Beat covers the facts: what New World Screwworm actually is, how it clawed its way back up through Central America and Mexico, steps the USDA is taking to address it, and why some of the loudest voices online are doing real damage with bad info...

Nicolette Hahn Niman has one of the more unusual biographies in American public life: environmental lawyer, former vegetarian, cattle rancher, Nobel Week speaker, author of Defending Beef , Point Reyes Seashore resident, and now, a congressional candidate challenging seven-term incumbent Jared Huffman in California’s newly redrawn District 2. She’s also one of two ranching families still standing...

00:00 Introduction 02:00 California's politician-made water crisis 07:15 What rural California actually looks like 10:30 Why Bianco chose California — and why he's fighting to keep it 13:35 Small-town Utah roots and what shaped him 15:47 Over-regulation destroying rural industries 18:30 The decision to run — what happened at Trump's inauguration 23:08 Faith and leading through darkness 27:48 Newso...

Justin Pettit is a third-generation cattle rancher in Bakersfield, California, where the West has never quite been won. Nine years ago, he developed a novel premium beef product. His carrot-finished beef was soon in demand among customers seeking a prime-graded grass-finished option as well as high-end restaurants and culinary programs across the country. After surviving COVID in Gavin Newsom’s Ca...

Darcy Burke is vice president of the Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District and a longtime California water professional. She was also featured in the tweet heard around Lake, Mendocino, and Sonoma counties on Monday, when USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins announced a potential buyer has emerged for the Potter Valley Project. Darcy joins me today to talk about why her board is interested in purchasi...

America’s farmland is being destroyed in the name of green energy. Alexandra Fasulo is doing something about it. Alex is an influencer, entrepreneur, first generation farmer, and accidental activist. Not long after buying a farm in her home state of New York, a neighbor told her about a foreign-owned company that had approached him six times, offering well above market value to lease his hayfield...

Today, Dr. Rich Brazil and Grace Brazil join Keely for a discussion on the future of the U.S. cattle herd, which currently sits at a 75-year low even as consumer demand for beef skyrockets. Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. recently made waves with his comments asking ranchers to stop selling cattle and to help rebuild the domestic beef herd. Is this easier said than done? T...

In this special Ranch Beat episode, Dr. Rich Brazil joins me to lend his insight on the current outbreak of Equine herpesvirus 1 (EHV-1) canceling major events across the horse world. He answers your questions like: What is EHV-1? Is there a vaccine? How does it spread? What are early symptoms? How should you handle a horse you believe may have been exposed? Then we answer a few audience questions...

Ranchers in the American Southwest are dealing with an escalating threat. The Mexican gray wolf has become an increasing liability to ranchers and residents of Arizona and New Mexico. “Wolves have killed our cattle in Arizona and in New Mexico. Wolves have changed our culture. They have changed how we live in wolf country.” Tom Paterson, New Mexico Rancher Tate Bennett , head of Rural Policy at th...

Six months after the press conference in D.C. where Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced criminal charges against the Maudes had been dropped, Heather fills us in on what’s happened to her family since and answers your questions. We discuss what it has been like working with Secretary Rollins, Chief Schultz, and other members of the Trump administration; whether the Forest Service agents...

Today I am speaking with Matt Kendall, sheriff of Mendocino County in California’s infamous Emerald Triangle, the epicenter of black market marijuana production. Sheriff Kendall blows the lid off some of the most under-covered and shocking stories in the U.S. today. Cartels are running rampant on Native American reservations and transnational criminal drug trafficking organizations are operating o...

Theodora Johnson is a cattle rancher and mom of three, born, raised, and still ranching in Siskiyou County, California. She’s also an award-winning journalist; one of the few who covered the reality of the infamous Klamath Dam removals that California governor Gavin Newsom has touted as a major victory. WATCH ON YOUTUBE: We talk about what’s happened since the Klamath River dams were pulled in 202...

J.B. Zielke is a world-traveling cowboy, author, and the host of the latest and greatest event on the Western music scene: Dusty Vaquero Days in Gillette, Wyoming, set to launch its inaugural weekend this Friday and Saturday (May 30-31). I met J.B. years ago. He set me a pre-release copy of his phenomenal memoir “The Lost Cowboy” where he describes his adventures cowboying on six continents. He’s...

Heather Maude is finally free to speak about her case and what the federal government put her family through. Her case has been called "private property rights precedent-setting issue of a generation.” After covering the Maude family’s case for close to a year, I was finally able to sit down with Heather and hear about what her family dealt with at the hands of the U.S. Forest Service. Heather is...

Casey Murph is a consummate Westerner, a man out of his time but here to remind us about the old ways and the things that still matter. For many years, he led the mule string at the Grand Canyon and now runs cattle on his family’s historic ranch in Navajo County, Arizona. He’s a regular writer for Range Magazine. In our interview today, we talk about how the National Park Service effectively ended...

Eddie “E.J.” Crandell has deep roots in Lake County, California, where he serves as chairman of the county board of supervisors and vice chair of the Robinson Rancheria of Pomo Indians. On Friday, Supervisor Crandell generously made time for an interview between meetings. I wanted to ask about his board’s bold decision to reach out to President Trump asking the federal government to intervene in t...

In honor of National Ag Day, I’m beyond excited to share the trailer for a film project very close to my heart. You Just Can’t See Them From the Road is my first full-length documentary. My sister Michaela and I had been wanting to shoot a film on the vanishing ranches of the American West for some time when California Rangeland Trust approached us. They gave us enormous trust and creative freedom...

Nate Chisholm is a grazing ecologist and rancher currently based in Kenya, where he is studying the impact of megafauna on savanna grassland ecosystems. For years, he ranched in Marin and Sonoma counties, including Point Reyes. He has amassed a decade of scientific research on the impact of grazing in environments very similar to Point Reyes, where a group of 12 ranchers are currently being remove...

Albert Straus is a legend in organic farming and the regenerative food movement. He is the founder of Straus Family Creamery, the oldest certified organic creamery in the United States. He has been an outspoken advocate and champion for the farmers and ranchers on Point Reyes, fighting tirelessly for his neighbors. His creamery sources milk from dairies on the peninsula. In 1940, there were 4.6 mi...

It was a real honor to speak with private forestry consultant Craig Blencowe, a leader in sustainable forest management. I asked Craig about timberland management, fire prevention, what’s changed in the American timber industry, spotted owls, bark beetles, what has gone wrong at the U.S. Forest Service, why we stopped salvaging lumber on public land after wildfires and hurricanes, why lumber is le...